Quality Upgradation by Enabling Space Technology (QUEST) : Emergency Departments
The effectiveness of the health care delivery system, depends on a very complex and varying interplay of several factors. This makes it vulnerable to a high incidence of errors, especially in the Emergency and Critical Care departments.
Even in the better developed health-care systems of the west, it is estimated that the incidence of preventable errors leading to patient death is very high.
ISRO, one of the largest and most successful space organizations in the world, has an immaculate safety record.
Health Quest is a product if a thought dawned - why not incorporate ISRO best practices for safety into health-care, specifically the areas of emergency and critical care, to make patient care safer?
This idea was explored by ISRO, AHPI (the Association of Health care Providers - India) and CAHO (the Consortium of Accredited Health care Organizations) along with SEMI (Society for Emergency Medicine, India) and the result of the collaboration between these organizations is the joint endeavor to improve patient safety in the high-mortality areas of emergency and critical care medicine.
While most hospitals already have well-defined in-house procedures for emergency and critical care settings, Those who associated with the project point out that procedures vary from hospital and hospital, hence lacking uniformity.
The ER QUEST released during the National Heath Conclave in New Delhi held on August 2017 are intended to introduce uniform standards nationwide. They are also intended to help Emergency Departments be better prepared to overcome infrastructure, equipment, and human factors that contribute to errors in treating patients.
This ER QUEST document can be used as ready reckoner in the Emergency Unit set up to improve patient safety and can be easily adapted in any Emergency Care setup without any significant infrastructure changes.
